Bitcoin firm Circle adds Michele Burns to board

Circle Internet Financial, a digital currency company, today announced another appointment to its board of directors and the first members of the company's advisory board.

M. Michele Burns, who has served on boards at Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart Stores, Cisco Systems and Orbitz, and was chief financial officer of Delta Air Lines, chief financial officer of Marsh & McLennan, and chairman and chief executive officer of Mercer, will join Circle's board of directors. Burns, currently an executive at Marsh & McLennan, will play an integral role in helping Circle build a financial platform that can grow to service consumers and businesses operating at a global scale.

"Michele Burns' experience as a CFO and Director of significant global consumer, financial and technology companies will be instrumental in helping Circle build a world class financial institution," said Jeremy Allaire, Circle founder, chairman and chief executive officer. "As chair of the Audit Committee at Goldman Sachs, Michele also brings unique perspective on what is required to build and operate a trusted, global financial services company."

Circle also announced the formation of an executive advisory board and the appointment of its first two members. Michael Barrett, former chief information security officer at PayPal and vice president of security at American Express, is joining the company's advisory board. Barrett was also recognized as the 'Information Security Executive of the Year' in 2010 by Tech Exec Network. Michael will assist Circle's leadership team with implementing information security strategies and best practices for its forthcoming products and services.

Also joining the advisory board is Mike Hearn, a leading developer for Bitcoin software and senior security engineer at Google. Hearn was one of the first developers to use Bitcoin after its initial release in 2009. He is also the author of BitcoinJ, the most widely used Java implementation of the Bitcoin protocol, and a thought leader on the use of Bitcoin for managing contracts and securitized assets, as well as improvements in Bitcoin that make it easier to adopt for papayments and mobile devices. Mike also serves as Chair of the Bitcoin Foundation's Law and Policy Committee.

Circle develops products that make it easy to exchange, store, send and receive digital currency. For businesses and charities, Circle provides merchant services for accepting digital currency payments. By building financial products and services that integrate with the Bitcoin protocol, Circle is able to offer faster transactions, lower costs, greater privacy safeguards and increased protection against fraud and identity theft.